Do you really need to disable DMA to upgrade the DRU-500A..

[Leigh]

if you read Sony's info on flashig the firmware to 1.0d it say to disable DMA, has anyone actually done that? or have you left DMA enabled??

Cheers

[morac]

When I updated those instructions weren't there so I didn't disable DMA. I also didn't uninstall DirectCD.

The flashing process worked like a charm, regardless.

My PC did hang when trying to shutdown windows after doing the flash (after it said the flash was successful), but after manually rebooting everything was fine.


I assume that some people had problems flashing with DMA enabled so Sony put up those instructions. You may be able to flash with DMA enabled or you may not be able to. You probably want to disable DMA though.

I don't know if you can permantly break your drive if the flash doesn't go well or if you can just reflash and get it working, but like they say "better safe than sorry".

[sammie]

Same here Morac, I just checked my read-me and "turn off DMA" wasn't there. But I think typically windows defaults to no UDMA when you first install a drive. So presuming it was a new install most folks are probably fine. But then again I haven't had any problems with DMA so my experience may not be applicable to those who are.

[defense]

I did everything that Sony said to do with the uninstalls, disabling of DMA, etc..etc...and when I tried to update the flash my system still hung. My system NEVER hangs, and I mean that. It may lock up temporarily when I run a ton of programs, but I can always get it back to the desktop and then shut down or reboot. But with this flash, my system hung, and EVERYTHING Locked up, and had no intention of unlocking, so I just did a hard reboot, and everything went smoothly. I was updated with 1.0d, and the burner is burning as smoothly as ever.

[Craig Tucker]

Sounds scary